Philosophy Now Forum

Why is it that human needs to have a greater sense of affection and turmoil compared to other species (a.k.a: complex psychological needs), or do they also need something of the kind but it's just the language barrier that prevents us to know whether it is so or not?

anthropomorphic fallacy

-Imp

Impenitent wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 9:45 pm anthropomorphic fallacy

-Imp

In response to the need for warm companionship on cold desert nights, the recessive dance gene in goats awoke and combined with natural selection in order to unwittingly endear future generations of their kind to the master/host, perhaps even endear in alluring ways for some of the hosts, which some scientists figure could have happened about the same time that mountain wolves learned to mirror smiles, wag it, shake, and be good listeners.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1dUEf6mvsOY

cicero117 wrote: ↑Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:46 am Why is it that human needs to have a greater sense of affection and turmoil compared to other species (a.k.a: complex psychological needs), or do they also need something of the kind but it's just the language barrier that prevents us to know whether it is so or not?

I would argue that humans have made a survival trade off, evolutionarily speaking. We sacrificed our built in survival instincts, in exchange for the ability to learn extremely specific survival behaviours.

As such, as humans, we can occupy many different environments, situations, etc, but, we need a prior group which has learned via exploration, how to cope with those specific conditions.

We have therefore, the need for group affiliation, as this ensures we can attain the knowledge required to survive in novel conditions. We also have the need to explore different circumstances, so as to branch off into unknown territory, which keeps us ahead of inevitably changing conditions, such as a food source shortage, a heat wave, extreme floods, etc.

Our adaptability and proliferation are therefore the result. For this reason, we can survive in many varying circumstances, while seemingly remaining the same species. We don’t spectate, or split genetically so much that we can no longer reproduce with distant groups.

This also ensures a great genetic diversity, maintaining our genetic integrity of the species.